Someone Else's Stories
by L.Wilson
Summary: France and Britain as the 'parents' of America and Canada - Arthur's ghost stories are something Francis loves about him, but they frighten young Alfred and Matthew. Title based off a number in the musical "Chess".


Someone Else's Stories

"Tell us a story, Arthur!" begged Alfred, and then Matthew, in those high pitched piping voices possessed by young boys.

Arthur sighed happily, a smile on his face as he tucked the boys into bed. "Very well then, just this one, and then you're to go to sleep. Both of you," he added, glancing sharply at Alfred, whose small face feigned innocence as best he could. "This one is an old ghost story from my country. It's scary though, are you sure you can handle it?"

Alfred nodded bravely, while Matthew looked hesitantly at the window as though he expected a dramatic bolt of lightning, or perhaps the tapping of an ominous crow, before he too nodded. "Very well then," continued Arthur. "I'll begin. Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Lakesnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly..."

Francis paused outside the door to the boys' room, and, pushing it open a crack, listened for a moment to Arthur's steady voice as it carried on the narrative:

"In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence. It was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it..." He remembered this particular story, and wondered vaguely if Alfred and Matthew would understand its deeper meaning. Matthew, possibly, but Alfred would likely just be scared witless – the way the personalities of the boys reflected off of each other in these ways was so interesting. They might very well have been blood brothers – and they might very well have been his and Arthur's sons. For all he was concerned, they were.

Backing off quietly, not wanting to disrupt Arthur's professional storytelling, he made his way to their bedroom and, after finishing the necessary bedtime preparations, sat down with a book of his own. He had just finished the chapter he'd been on when Arthur came in and began to undress.

"Are they asleep?"

"I think so," said Arthur, buttoning up his nightshirt. "You could've come in to say goodnight."

"I was going to," replied Francis, setting the book on his bedside table and removing his glasses – the glasses only Arthur knew he needed for reading. "I didn't want to interrupt though, you tell stories so well."

Arthur smiled warmly at him as thanks for the compliment, and, after switching off the light, climbed into bed. "You know Alfred is going to be scared, though," continued Francis, his face now silhouetted in the glow of the desk lamp beside him. Arthur looked up at him and sighed.

"I suppose you're right. He won't learn, will he? He loves my ghost stories more than anything but at the end of the day – or, night, rather – they're still a bit too much for him. Matthew, on the other hand..."

Arthur continued pondering on the matter while Francis, by way of a reply, leant down and kissed him on the cheek. His intentions becoming more clearly less innocent by the second, Arthur stopped thinking about personalities and England's ghosts and responded in his own way.

As they kissed, Francis still had that line about the cemetery in his mind, and macabre as it was it made him love Arthur even more. His extraordinary passion and talent for storytelling hadn't been revealed until after they had become intimate, and it was one of Arthur's quirks that made him incredibly endearing. While admittedly none of his native tales had quiet the elegance of slippers lost at royal balls, nor the romance of princes turned into beasts and turned back only by true love, Arthur's murder mysteries, tales of magical enchantment, and haunting ghost legends had – like their teller – a foreign beauty to them. Francis wouldn't always admit to it, but the French and English cultures and traditions really were most beautiful when complimenting each other. Though, given his current arrangements, he could hardly think anything else. That someone with whom he had a longstanding animosity with would turn out to be so _right _for him was, well... it was something out of one of those stories, it really was.

Arthur, meanwhile, had begun to unbutton his shirt, and just as Francis moved to assist him they heard the patter of small feet on the hardwood floor, and a reluctant knock on the door. Quickly assuming normalcy, they watched as Alfred entered the room. Francis shot Arthur perhaps the most loving "I told you so" look in the history of the world, and Arthur helped Alfred up and sat him between the two of them.

"Was it the story?" he asked kindly.

Alfred nodded. "There was a knock, I think on the window. I didn't want it to be something I'd wished for gone wrong."

Francis tucked the blanket around him. "You needn't worry about that. It was only a story." Certainly he'd had the "there's no such thing as 'only a story'" talk with Arthur before, but this was definitely not the time to go into the anthropological metaphysics of it and he – correctly – felt sure his partner would be sympathetic.

His train of thought was derailed by another set of footsteps as Matthew barged into the room with a real sense of a child's determined urgency. "I wasn't afraid of the story," he said defensively as he was helped onto the bed and settled in between Alfred and Francis. "But then Alfred left, and I was alone..."

"Don't worry," said Arthur. "I'll tell you a different story. It's got a giant in it, though, but we'll be here to protect you." Alfred and Matthew looked on in awe as Arthur cleared his throat and began the story. "There was once upon a time a poor widow who had an only son named Jack, and a cow named Milky-white. And all they had to live on was the milk the cow gave every morning which they carried to the market and sold. But one morning, Milky-white gave no milk and they didn't know what to do..."

He finished the story for himself, as the children both fell asleep before making it to the end, and Francis had all but joined them. As Arthur reached across to turn off the lamp Francis grabbed his hand, notching their fingers together, and murmured "your storytelling is beautiful" from the depths of both his sleepiness and his heart.

**A/N "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs was written in 1902, so long after Arthur and Alfred would have had **_**any **_**kind of father-son dynamic, but I loved the story too much not to use it here. Certain liberties must occasionally be taken in chronological matters when writing fiction.**

**The version of "Jack and the Beanstalk" used here is from the remarkable anthology "Best-Loved Folktales of the World" complied by Joanna Cole.**


End file.
